Game Studies Books

When I was teaching second and third grade I used this book to implement a math home/school homework program. The directions are easy to follow and I used decks of cards from the 99 cent store. As an addition, I made up a homework learning questionnaire. In a Ziplock baggie went the directions, a deck of cards, and my learning questionnaire. After a student was done with his/her packet, he/she would share what he/she learned with the class. The book inspired my students to brush up on their number sense skills individually, with each other, and their family members! I highly recommend this book!

Just by using a simple deck of cards, Dr. Karol Yeatts has put together many activities that will help children practice skills in mathematics in a fun and exciting format. As a teacher of low-performing students,I have found a great deal of success when using many of these games with my students. These activities also remind me of the fun I used to have as a child when I played card games with friends and family. Dr. Yeatts has made learning Fun again.

Dizard continues to educate and explore hunting in America. A wonderful writer in a family of gifted writers and educators, he offers us the gift of greater understanding and contemplation of these issues. Again, another terrific book from this author.

Great writing by a brave person willing to attempt to make sense of an aspect of our culture everyone thinks they understand. One will find it difficult to take pleasure or refuge in their prejudices after reading this book.

Countries that are included...Africa: Botswana, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Zaire, Ghana, Morocco, North Africa, South Africa, West Africa; Asia: Afghanistan, Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam; Australia and New Zealand; Europe: Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden; North America: Canada, Guatemala, Mexico, Trinidad, United States; South America: Brazil, Chile, Tierra del Fuego...I used this book very successfully for a multicultural-themed camp program with students in K-5th. What can I say, as a teacher on a tight budget, I appreciate knowing as much as possible about a book before I spend my own money on it :)

An excellent resource book for the classroom teacher and teacher of physical education.It has high interest supplemental activities for Social Studies units.A good source for independent activities that enhance learning. Highly recommended.

This soft hardcover board book is the perfect book for an introduction into the wonderful world of DK Publishing! This book is perfect for little chubby hands and grows with your child. At 2 1/2 my daughter still loves these DK books. They have expanded her vocabulary and also her pride in herself when she can tell me what each picture is as if she is reading each page. Her bright smile is worth millions, now and her love of books is a pay off that will reap benefits later on in her life..... really!

This book includes 2 pages each:
Animals - Elphant & her calf, a Panda, Puppy & Foal, Birds- Nest, Chicken Chick, a Penguin Family, Pigeon & Feathers. Plants - Wheat, Flower, Wind carrying Dandelion seeds & Cactus, Insects - Ants, Ladybug, Monarc Butterfly, Grasshopper, & Bee. Fruit- Orange, Lemons, grapes, Strawberry & Pears. Sea Creatures - Seal, a school of Fish, Crab & Starfish, Trees - Leaves, Forest, various tree Seeds, & Blossoms and Weatherr- Rain, Wind, colors of a Rainbow, Sun and Snow.

We've been reading this book since my son was about 4 months old (he just turned 2), and I credit this book for inspiring much of his love of reading. Although he's not no longer as fixated on it as he once was (Richard Scarry is now his obsession!), he still loves to look at the beautiful pictures and brightly colored flowers, animals, fruits, and other natural elements.

I was at the library the other day looking for craft ideas when I stumbled across a book entitled Nature Smart. The cover of the book showed eight really neat projects that appeared to be earth friendly, with some even utilizing recycled materials. I checked it out immediately and eagerly awaited a chance to read through it. After getting the little ones settled down for the night, I opened up this book and was immediately impressed. This book provides parents and teachers with ideas for projects that will help children learn more about the world around them while giving them opportunities to be creative.

As a homeschooling mom, I'm always looking for projects to do with my children that will be fun for them as well as educational. Looking at the craft section at the local bookstore or library can be overwhelming! Too often I find crafts which are cute but don't really provide my children with the opportunity to learn something new. I strive to teach my children about Earth-friendly living, so I was happy to find project ideas that incorporated the use of recycled materials as well as items from nature such as leaves and twigs.

The authors of Nature Smart have compiled more than 150 nature and ecology inspired projects for children. Each craft description includes a list of items to gather in advance, easy to follow directions, and colorful images and diagrams that make the more difficult projects easier to understand. Most of activities in the book are also accompanied by background information on the topic which is a really great feature. For example, the pages that describe how to make a butterfly hatchery with your children includes diagrams of butterflies and moths and information about their life cycle. This content can be read by parents as a refresher before they begin a project with their child or it can be read independently by an older child. Of course, parents of non-readers could read aloud to their children in order to further their understanding of the topic.

Here are a few projects from the book that I plan to try with my children:




Rustic Wren House

Butterfly and Moth Hatchery

Seashell Wind Chime

Wild Flower Candles

Corn Husk Flowers

Bat House

Tin Can Marionette

Bean and Pasta Mosaic


This book is truly fantastic. Nature Smart is designed for school-aged children but many of the projects could be modified to meet the needs of preschoolers. This book is an excellent resource for the eco-conscious parent or teacher who is looking for nature-inspired activities to do with children. I highly recommend it.

This is an absolutely wonderful book. W have used it as part of our homeschooling curriculum. There are so many projects and all are reasonable to complete and to fund.

The emphasis on conservation is clear, and this shows more than anywhere in the way in which the projects are laid out. They do not require expensive tools or ingredients, and often use items found around the house. I am overly pleased with this book, and can not emphasize enough how much I think it teaches kids to respect the earth.

I would also recommend other books by Gwen Diehn. We have checked these out from the library and have been very pleased.

Wendel gives a face to the many Latino players that have been a part of baseball in the US -- first in "Negro" leagues and finally in the majors where they have come to dominate. Wendel's writing is always very readable, with facts interlaced with plenty of stories by and about the Latino players. The photographs are a wonderful plus to this excellent account of the rise of Latino players in baseball. Six year olds (such as my grandson) can readily identify the pictures of current players. Another excellent read (this one fiction) by Wendel is "Castro's Curveball." I highly recommend it also.

Okay, let's start with my admission that I'm not a baseball fan. I knew the game from childhood but the big money and greed have alienated many of us who enjoyed baseball as kids. That being said, I found that The New Face of Baseball refreshing enough to evoke some of those feelings that made me appreciate baseball in the first place. The book has to do with talented Latino baseball players like Clemente, Cepeda, and Sosa. The common element is that these players played the game elsewhere before coming the United States, places where the game is more sacred and believe it or not more important than here in America.

The books consists of short stories about many of today's heroes that have quickly become baseball superstars, and those older stars who paved the way for the younger Latino players much the way Robinson and Dobry did for African American players. The author uses player interviews and past experiences of his own to give the reader a greater appreciation for what players Latin America have done for today's game.

Maybe the most interesting part is the All Century Latino team listed at the end of the book. It's a lineup that would challenge any other all-star team, past or present.

I have taught a multi-age class, grades 1,2, and 3 for 10 years and have found Number Jugglers to be the most popular and useful math game in my class's math program. Children who do not feel successful in other ways in math, find a place of comfort with Number Jugglers. Children are thinking, manipulating numbers, problem solving, and practicing math facts while having a great deal of fun. Number Jugglers is solid in current good teaching practices. I found Number Jugglers easy to understand and use. Kids love to leave school with Number Jugglers as their homework. I think Number Jugglers should be on every classroom shelf and in every home.

This book works for every kid, and adults enjoy playing the games, too! I have never seen a child try a Number Jugglers game without getting enthusiastic about math. It must be the feeling of success that comes with getting it right in Number Jugglers.

Whatever it is, Ruth Alexander has developed a truly great approach to math learning that works. And it's enjoyable enough to have at home, too. It has all the right elements of game play--adjustable for many age and skill levels, and for single or multiple users.

Although Ian Bogost clearly has a vested interest, as a game designer and critic, in the ability of games to communicate powerful, evocative messages, Persuasive Games seriously challenges some pervasive assumptions behind games, reception and interactivity-- taking a run at how games communicate all the wonderful (or terrible) things they are assumed to communicate. Bogost makes several rather clever moves in this book, including linking the development of a 'procedural rhetoric' to the theorization of visual rhetoric-- of course games use both, but such nitpicking isn't the point of this book. Persuasive Games isn't an instruction manual for making compelling games, but it will start to the kinds of discussions we need to make more compelling games possible.

Ian Bogost really practices what he preaches. The way he builds and reconfigures ideas and concepts, he effectively illustrates how procedural rhetoric can be done textually as well as through games. This book (along with his earlier _Unit Operations_) shows Bogost doing some of the most substantive thinking in the game studies field.

Beautiful book with excellent examples for linking art and literacy.
Clear ideas and methods for utilizing a variety of hands-on techniques. The book is intended for children but is more suited to adults, specifically those who teach children.

This is the book to use if you want to help children see and participate in the creative process. I bought my first copy several years ago, when I was teaching in a one-room school house. It inspired kids from the 1st to the 8th grade. The examples of the artist's work are well-chosen, and the art and page layout is beautiful. The content is presented in comfortable thematic chunks just right for a few days work in the classroom, or an afternoon at home. It is multicultural and thematic.

for example --

Murals and Ballads - telling a story: Diego Rivera and E.B.White

Each poet and artist is given an interesting, child-friendly biography. There is a section called "making the connection," which guides the children through the theme to note the ways different artist/poets chose to express their vision. Last, but not least, each theme has a motivating writing and art project to go with it. In a world where less and less art, and less and less innovation are being supported in the schools, this is an ideal resource. It is a tool a teacher can fit into the day easily. It could provide a terrific substitute for a language handout or homework project.

Parents will find this a wonderful gift for their literary and artistic teenagers as well.

I stumbled upon this book back in 1992 while visiting a library near where I worked during my lunch break. I took it home and read it in one sitting, I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed it so much that I eventually bought the book for myself. As the years passed I imagined what a nice intelligent man the author of this book, David Sudnow, must be.

After all, Mr. Sudnow is somewhat of a pioneer in many fields. A PhD having earned his degree at Berkeley he published an instructional book on how to self teach the Piano. I took him to be something of a renaissance man having also published a book on care for the dying. His aforementioned book, Ways Of The Hand, awarded him the Guggenheim Fellowship.

After the Internet became commercially established I decided to do a search for Mr. Sudnow around the year 2002. It was my plan to thank him for such a wonderfully written book as well as to take the opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with him. I imagined becoming friends with this learned and intelligent man, discussing the frivolity and fun of video gaming along with the more deeper and meaningful things of God.

Only a day passed before I received a response.

"F - YOU! I'm an avowed Atheist".

Except he had spelled the word out. I was really taken aback by it. So much so that I simply couldn't accept that such a response would come from so scholarly a man. I wrote back again to confirm if I was in fact corresponding with the Mr. David Sudnow, Author.

"Yes you are, I find you offensive".

So ended my corresponding with Mr. Sudnow.

Sadly I found out recently that David Sudnow passed away suddenly during the summer of 2007. If only I had tried harder, if only I had written to him again, and again even...

I'm sorry Mr. Sudnow, I should have tried harder.

No longer available new from Amazon, this book is an in-depth look at one man's obsession with _Breakout_ on the Atari 2600. Although this is written as a simple autobiography, Sudnow is so meticulous in how he catalogues his addiction to _Breakout_ that it could serve as a text on the psychology of gaming and its physiological effects. Ignore the recurring cold-war paranoia and enjoy.